Hello, all! It's been quite some time since I've been in the writing mood, and... this is what came out. I was planning on doingsimilar fics to this one, in sort of a series of one-shots, but with different POVs. Tristan, Dean, Logan... however, I seem to just suck at ever completing anything, so I just decided to post this. Hope you enjoy...

Oh! I almost forgot! 1) I don't own Gilmore Girls. Darn. 2) Rating is for Jess's dirty mouth, lol, and if anyone has a problem with it being T, just let me know and I'll happily change it to M.

"Yeah, mom, I'm eating fine."

"Staying out of trouble?"

"Me? Of course!"

"Now, Jess-"

"I know, I know. I'm fine, mom, really."

She continues in this vein for a couple more minutes, then says she has to go; she's going to Luke and Lorelai's for dinner.

"Oh. Really. Well, I'll let you go then."

"Love you, be safe, bye!"

"Bye."

Dinner with Luke and Lorelai, huh? Interesting. I wonder if Lorelai and Rory… None of my business now, I guess. Damn, what a mess that girl has made. I wouldn't have ever believed it if someone had told me she'd turn into a society girl back when I first met her.

I still remember meeting her for the first time. She was in her room when I went over to her house for the lovely "Welcome Jess" dinner. I don't think I'd ever met another person with that many books. Maybe- hopefully?- mine is in among them now.

She was so… innocent. Even now, I don't think I'll be able to get that image of her out of my head. She'll always be seventeen and gorgeous (not that she's not now… it's just different, somehow), like a china doll. Just like a china doll.

I remember feeling that if I held her too close, treated her too roughly she would break, shatter, fall away. I never held her too close, that's for sure. I could never let a single damn person in, even when they just wanted to help. I was an idiot. Hell, I still am.

Maybe I did want her to break just a little though. To see she was human, just like everyone else, inside. Not perfect, but flawed.

Logically, I knew she was far from perfect; she had her ups and downs too, she made mistakes. But never anything significant. I crashed her first car, for Christ's sake. I sent her to the fucking hospital the first time we went to get ice cream. I guess I broke her a little then; she did have to wear a cast for six weeks.

I still cringe when I think of that. I should have just taken her right back to the damn diner. I never should have asked her to go for ice cream in the first place. If I wasn't such a goddamn fuck-up the entire time she wouldn't have had to tutor me in the first place.

Did I stop there? Of course not. Lord knows I tried and tried to chip away at that china-doll shell she had. I treated her horribly, took her for granted.

The night of the Distillers concert, I saw a little crack in her veneer. After I dropped her off, I went back to the apartment and listened to her message. She had every right to say the things she did, but she was too scared to rock the boat. I wanted to see a little more of that fire in her eyes when she was pissed at me. She always looked so beautiful when she was really fired up, and I just wanted to SEE some of that passion come to the surface.

I think I really tried to break her when I left. Hell, I tried the night before. Truth be told, I was pushing her away even before that, my goddamn inability to communicate like a decent human being getting in the way of… well, us. How hard is it to say, "I fucked up. I'm sorry." Really hard when you're trying to tell it to the perfect girl, the one who never fucks up quite - hell, anywhere near - this badly.

So I ran. I didn't want to fight, wanted my last memory of her to be a good one, a happy face and a smile. It wasn't, not quite, after all we had had the worst fight we'd ever had the night before, and to top it off I got into a fight with her ex. But she was still trying to patch things up, no matter how big of an ass I had been. That's what I left with. And it was good enough.

Of course, if I didn't have her on a pedestal to begin with, maybe we would have been all right. I was ready to knock her off it, pull the good girl down with the town's bad boy. I was an idiot. I never really wanted to see her off the pedestal I held her up on, maybe I just wanted everyone else to. She sure as hell didn't want to be up there.

A/N2: This is shameless pimping of the Veronica Mars variety, so feel free to stop here :) Basically: if you haven't seen it, check it out. It is absolutelyawesome. And possibly on the verge of cancellation. Which saddens me to no end. And if it survives, it'll be on after GG:) www(dot)sheswatchingyou(dot)com. That is all! Thanks for reading!